What if you went outside and saw these artists… LIVE!? It’s good for you!

More importantly it’s good for the artists.

It’s no longer difficult and tedious either. You no longer have to talk to that annoying hipster at your local coffee shop who knows too much for someone who hates everything. Thanks to the wonders of the internet you can easily track your favorite artists in real time and find out who’s playing your local venues.

You may be surprised what places have live music.

Gigfi is a relatively new website that allows you to search your local area or favorite venues to find upcoming gigs and then creates a Spotify playlist out of them. If that’s not innovation and integration it’s finest, I don’t know what is.

Songkick is another integration tool that brings gig alerts right to your facebook, right when they’re announced. Enter some of your favorite artists and it will alert you when they’re in town or use the stalker feature to find out the shows you weren’t invited that your “friends” are seeing.

Bandsintown is similar to Songkick but also has an app for android and iOS that gives you updates the moment a new concert is announced. It tracks your Spotify, Last.fm, or iTunes accounts for bands you’re listening to so no need to constantly search and update your favorite artists.
This is also a fantastic tool for artists as well who can set up an account to alert all their fans of where they’ll be.

Pollstar is an international music news website with a real time ticker listing average ticket prices of various acts. It can be a little daunting and shove things in your face but it’s perfect for finding ticket deals. Look! They even know who Karl Denson is..

Scout.me is not just a great tool for finding shows but also restaurants, local attractions, hiking trails, sporting events, human sacrifices; basically where all the cool people will be.

So go out this weekend. Bring your imaginary friends and shake your imaginary fannies to some good music. We have to support those that bring us so much enjoyment to our lives when we’re ruling the realm from our pillow forts.

You will find me at the Set Back Inn tomorrow night (Friday 2/28/14) in Tarrytown watching the massively talented Reggae/Dub/Funk/Afrobeat/Jazz/Wutd’hellwuzthat? group, Sixth Degree.